If you are NOT playing around with DX10 Preview...GET RID OF...

[Guest]

Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more. I think there is plenty of evidence to support my argument, and almost nothing to support yours.Please, prove I'm wrong.

[Reset XPDR 1,359]

I'll give this a go for Osama there Jim,>1. "ACES certainly not appearing to give a hoot about fixing>the tons of issues with the program."They have a public presence here both before and after this release and have released two SPs to resolve more issues than they have introduced. I think this contitutes at least one hoot, so you are therefore wrong in your statement.>2. "probably constrained by the bean counters at Microsoft"As this is a reality with any business, although possibly true, it is therefore a moot point.>3. "It seems like they rush everything out the door not ready>for prime time"So if I find one product they have released in the history of the company that was ready then your arguement is invalid? I am sure I can find at least one if I have to. Beware of using extremes like "everthing"!>4. "If it's not an OS, consider yourself lucky to get any kind>of SP's."More FS versions than just FSX have had SPs issues, which means we are either REALLY lucky or they do release SPs for products other than their OSs. I pick the latter.>5. "They certainly sold a lot of people a bill of goods on the>DX10 issue"Admittedly MS did offer more than they could achieve initially, but this was toned down here in the forums by ACES well before we saw it. You must have seen this if you are a regular at these forums.>6. "more bloated code offering little in the way of>improvements over xp"Unless you have access to MS source code, you could not possibly know this for sure. And if you do have access, there are likely a few MS lawyers that want to have a chat to you ;-)>7. "Crysis was not abandoned as was FSX"Phil Taylor posted here in the last few days and we have had two SPs, therefore we have not been abandoned. There you go again with absolutes!>JimAs you can see, your unjustified use of absolutes has weakened, if not nullified, most of what you have puported as truth. Now how about we talk about something a bit more constructive :-)Gary

[n4gix 4,955]

>The result? 18-20 FPS at KSEA with settings medium high in>the Microlight with 100% AI default traffic (a grand total of>11 default aircraft at KSEA). 8 FPS with all sliders at full.> I assume the 'FS' in FSX stands for Flight SIMULATOR and not>Flight SLIDESHOW?Mike, considering that many others -including myself- get far better performance than what you cite above with far less in the way of hardware, clearly your hardware (unless there's something defective) should be running circles around "us..."I can only think of a few reasons why this might not be so, but I suspect that it is possible that impatience has paid no small part in the singular lack of success.You stated, " I was excited to build this computer myself yesterday..."It seems that you haven't spent nearly enough time getting your computer set up and fully optimized yet...

[Great Ozzie 101]

>There simply is nothing faster available right now.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115050:-P

[Guest]

Honestly, you really haven't nullified anything. I don't have time at the moment to comment on everything, but I'll take a couple issues on with the time I have.The product still has issues, many in fact. Just because they gave us 2 (questionable in my mind) SP's, doesn't mean they haven't abandoned us. Have they mentioned further fixes short of a new release? I haven't heard of any. They have steadfastly said NO MORE WORK ON FSX. PERIOD. END OF STORY.DX10 - this was a real piece of work. All you had to do was look at the artists rendition, read the hype, and then compare it to the actuality. I rest my case. DX10 and FSX were supposed to be premier products, and from everything I read and see they both failed miserably. Oh, did I forget Vista? Anyhow, I am bothered by how MS so seemingly (this is an important word) sold people on pie-in-the-sky products which they could not deliver. This had cost many believers a lot of money, who later would come to find that things weren't what they were cracked up to be.I'll address more later if you like, but for now I'll leave with this - Crysis is getting very close to releasing patch 3, within only 5 or so months of its release. It took ACES (who I think is understaffed and overworked from what I see) around a year or so to put out 2. And for the most part I could not detect any improvement, (in fact in some respects I saw backwards movement), with either of these patches, with respect to graphics. As I mentioned earlier, in spite of the numerous issues remaining with FSX, they have flat out stated no more effort will be put into it. H$ll, there are still issues from versions past they never addressed (take the replay and record functions, for example). (I've been a customer/user for 20 yrs) Compare that with Crysis, on patch 3, and they state they will continue to develop it for the forseeable future.Thats all for now. I need to get some sleep.Perhaps we can discuss this further later today.Take care.. PS: If you like I can find you a link to a previous post of mine which Phil did not answer - I believe I started the thread and he did make one or two comments, but failed to address my most important question. You can see for yourself - why did he ignore my question? I think it was important and made/makes a great deal of sense.

[bob.bernstein 0]

Mike, I don't doubt that your system is pretty cool, but its not quite fair to say you spent all $4000 to acheive fsx results, or if you did you hadn't done much homework. Most of your spending is not likely to influence fsx. The proc and vid card, yes, but most of your goodies are big bucks for little predictable impact on fsx. I don't have a problem with your machine, I just have a problem your justifying great angst based on what you spent. The mistake is in thinking more dollars should equal more performance.The reality is that more optimizing within your system will equal more performance, and that performance may not be measured in fps.Funniest thing, over at simflight forums, there is a support forum for fsgs. Due to limited traffic, within a short read you can find posts back in late 2003. Anyone can read them...their a riot...same discussions. Same results. At the time ati 9800pro was top of the line video, and people were investing in p4 @ nearly 3ghz processors. Spending huge dollars, getting 11-15 fps and posting similarly frustrated posts as this. And the message then was, optimize the system, and you'll find the same frames producing satisfying results. Brute force with hardware doesn't get you there. No change...same truth today.Good luck,Bob

[Reset XPDR 1,359]

I have no doubt there are some elements of truth to what you said above, but you blur that by using absolutes. Not only are they easy to refute, as I have shown above, but that style of argument immediately gets up the nose of the very people you want (expect) to help you, and is therefore self-defeating. All I am suggesting is you tone it down clear facts or make it obvious that something is your own opinion. Express your angst if you must, but please do so in a constructive and respective manner. We all have feelings, even Phil ;-)Re DX10, I agree that it is disappointing how it panned out for FSX, but short of a rewrite of FSX I think no amount of desk-pounding would have seen a fully functioning DX10 patch before FSXI hits the streets.Re Vista, yes it had a bumpy start but it's a reasonably solid product now. In fact two out of four computers in my house run Vista, one of which is my primary FS rig, and I don't feel any need to thow this fish back in the sea.Re Crysis, as has been said before, FPS games like this have a much shorter halflife than an FS release, so support tends to be higher and quicker initially but soon dies off when the next new game comes out. FS is a more strategic product, where the product life cycle is much longer and lines of support are blurred between what you see in an SP release and what has been noted for incorporation in the next release. Yes, there is an element of faith in the latter form of support but MS does incorporate many of our requested fixes in subsequent releases (although I must admit that if the age old shifting winds issue is not fixed in FSXI, I will certainly be getting my money's worth out of FS9!). Gary

[Guest Grahame Myers]

I've been reading this post with a lot of interest, and would like to make a few observations:First of all, I think Aces did the best job they could do with the two SP's, FSX ain't half bad with SP1 and SP2 installed.If you follow the advice given by people like Nick.N, and install properly, including defragging properly, FSX can be stunning.Before you read any further, take a look at my system specs underneath: a last generation system based on an AMD 939 socket, admittedly with the fastest hardware available for that platform, but nowhere near as powerful as a Core2Duo system.And nevertheless, FSX runs like a dream: FPS locked at 30, no stuttering, no texture problems, no graphic problems with menus etc.I have my settings medium-high to high (terrain mesh at 90%, MyTrafficX set at 30% AI, AA 4x, AF 16x, etc, you get the picture, except for no autogen at all.In complex scenarios (major airports etc) of course my FPS drops down to occaisional single digits, but who cares? Not me, I fly mostly bush in BC and alaska, or other places in the world where you can fly rugged bush stuff.I have Vancouver X installed (thank you (danke!) Holger, FS Genesis, Adam Mills textures, Scenery Tech landclass, and fly some pretty demanding, but well-coded (and truly FSX compliant)aircraft like the Beaver and Twin Otter from Aerosoft, or the Twin Comanche from ESDG.When I fly them in the bush environment that I've spoken about, I mostly get 20-25 FPS constantly in the VC, with no stuttering, not even when flying curves and looking out of the window.As I had my frames unlocked, the FPS counter would shoot up to 60-70 fps, with occasional flashes of over 100fps. I locked them down to 30fps as I feel FSX is smoother with locked fps, at a level that your computer can handle. FSX still looks smooth at 15-20fps, the best thing you can do is never look at the fps counter, and just enjoy!I can't help observing that most of the people who are complaining the loudest seem to be using new-generation Nvidea cards, they only seem to work at all after some pretty geeky tuning using Nhancer: Their drivers out-of-the-box seem to be pretty buggy.All the complainers should just get their act together and optimize their FSX installation, instead of blaming Aces, SP2, MS, add ons, the weather, the next door neighbors dog :-), in fact just about anything at all, except their own inability to do the job right.I too have lost a few things since SP2 (mostly ported FS9 stuff, or FSX add ons that were patched for FSX, but not fully FSX compliant), but I still think SP2 is the way to go. It's been the same since computers were invented: The endless quest for more speed and more features, and some things get broken along the way. That's the way of the world, you either have to go with it, or eventually become a dinosaur..I'm 54, and a late starter.My first personal computer had a 1GHz P3, and Windows ME, and my first FS version was FS98, so you can see I was late on the scene. But, I learned to keep on learning, so to speak, and realized pretty quickly the computers are always in a state of flux. You never reach the point where you can say: That's it! This setup is going to be good for the next five years or whatever, there is always something new on the horizon.With my system, I've proved that it can work well, even on computers that're not on the bleeding edge :-). I would also dearly love to build a new Core2Duo system, but financial restraints (no job at the moment) mean that I'm having to stick with what I've got.Despite all the problems with FSX, I still think that it is, overall, much better than FS9: Better default scenery, better water, better CPU/GPU utilization, and a better overall "feel" as far as immersion and flight dynamics go.I do hope I haven't rambled on too much here, I just wanted to share my thoughts about this. I think it's a shame that there has been so much negative energy wasted regarding FSX, we should accept that FSX SP2 is the way to go, and move onto the future.RegardsGrahame

[tf51d 284]

Yes, there is an element of faith in the latter form of support but MS does incorporate many of our requested fixes in subsequent releases (although I must admit that if the age old shifting winds issue is not fixed in FSXI, I will certainly be getting my money's worth out of FS9!).If you haven't yet, check out the latest FSUIPC it seems to have tamed the beast quite alot as far as the winds go!!!

[Guest]

Again, you haven't really refuted anything I've said with any sound reasoning. Sorry.Absolute - FSX still has many issues.Absolute - FSX's development/repair work is done/finished/finito.Absolute - DX10 was a fantasy as far as FSX. I don't remember them using the term "preview" when discussing SP2 for quite some time after even after SP1 was released. That should be reason enough for them to continue to work on it.Absolute - Microsoft has a history of putting out software products before they are really ready - ask any IT manager. One of their biggest problems, in my opinion, is sticking to a pre-defined release schedule nearly so rigidly that they end up rushing it out the doorbefore it should be.You already agree with me about point 2 so I need not discuss that.Point 3 - I said "seems" like everything is rushed out the door. No doubt there are exceptions, though I can't think of any personally. But then again I do not use all of their products either.On point 4, I'll just give you that one - I probably should have re-worded it anyhow. And it appears that this is becoming more of a norm for everyone.I can only hope that MS learns from their mistakes on this one. The restructuring of the groups sounds like it should pay some real dividends. Rebuilding the engine is the smartest thing they can do, and it looks like that is exactly what they are doing - long overdue, and very much appreciated. Anyways, not much more to be said that hasn't been said already....

[DadJokeCinema 145]

>Absolute - Microsoft has a history of putting out software>products before they are really ready - ask any IT manager.>One of their biggest problems, in my opinion, is sticking to a>pre-defined release schedule nearly so rigidly that they end>up rushing it out the door>before it should be.>Point 3 - I said "seems" like everything is rushed out the>door. No doubt there are exceptions, though I can't think of>any personally. But then again I do not use all of their>products either.These two statements are pretty much the most ignorant and uninformed things I have ever heard. Is it opposite day somewhere and someone didn't tell me?Here's some focused reading on Microsoft supposedly sticking so rigidly to release schedules.http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/170http://blogs.computerworld.com/microsoft_w...lay_sp1_releasehttp://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9753706-7.htmlhttp://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30142/76/http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/ser...ayed_again.html

[boshar 6]

>Last time I checked, the download counts for SP1 are at least>50% of the entire sales figures. So from that data it appears>the FS franchise has a higher percent of "with it" users than>many suspect.How do you determine unique downloads? As a test I personally downloaded SP1 at least 4 times. This was done during testing on 3 PCs and a reinstall on the 4th PC. Of course I only activated it on 1 machine at a time. But I wonder howmany lazy people like me use their broadband connection instead of their memory stick.

[boshar 6]

>Mike...?!?!?!?!?!? How can THIS BE? I get 18-22 with my>humble P4!!! What gives? Something is wrong. I have all my>sliders to the right except Water... If I can get the>performance you are getting, then you should trump me by at>least 10 FPS at the minimum!!!>>I'm at a loss....>>MitchThats the whole problem. There is something peculiar about FS-X. You can't use your experience on hardware combination X as a basepoint and conclude that if you improve parts A, B and C the overall experience will bij faster by Y fps.Sometimes it will be faster, Sometimes it wil be as fast but with nicer graphics, Sometimes it will be worst.People that bother to post about their experience will ussually get reactions like. 'There must be somthing wrong with your hardware'. and yes sometimes a dodgy driver or a bad hardware combo will do that BUT NOT ALL THE TIME.

[boshar 6]

One could argue that the reason for Vista SP1 is caused by releasing Vista RTM to early and even now the web is buzzing with people that have problems caused by the delayed (and beter?) Vista SP1.Working in IT myself I have to say that there is a general feeling that Microsoft has trouble getting things right the first time. Common wisdom is to wait for a SP2 before implementing the new software or OS. Part of this is caused by the immense market that Microsoft has for its products but the sentiment is undeniably there and lets face it FS-X with unique DX-10 feautures only came true after SP2.Microsoft advertising department is outperforming their engineers all the time and makes it hard for them to deliver the bloated expectations.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

>>Thats the whole problem. There is something peculiar about>FS-X. You can't use your experience on hardware combination X>as a basepoint and conclude that if you improve parts A, B and>C the overall experience will bij faster by Y fps.>>Sometimes it will be faster, Sometimes it wil be as fast but>with nicer graphics, Sometimes it will be worst.>>People that bother to post about their experience will>ussually get reactions like. 'There must be somthing wrong>with your hardware'. and yes sometimes a dodgy driver or a bad>hardware combo will do that BUT NOT ALL THE TIME.--------------------------------------------------------------'...Sometimes it will be faster, sometimes it wil be as fast but with nicer graphics, sometimes it will be worst.'This statement seems true and quite apparent, if you compile a composite of 'my system does this, my system does that in FPS' postings. I do see what you are saying about the QUALITY of the represented visual world as independent of actual FPS. I DO GET 22 FPS, but...in some of the screen's I have seen, other persons rigs are producing that world in better and crisper textures. Like some others have already said...where with using FS9, you could accurately say you got great performance merely by the bean counter,...with FSX...that seems to be NOT the case then. Perhaps Mike should look at how his virtual world is being rendered...crisp (no blurriness?), smooth animation---EVEN if the FPS is showing at around 22.You made a good point.